This resource pack looks at the ways that we deliver our responsibilities around early education and childcare, which are incredibly important when it comes to giving our youngest residents a head start.

This resource pack is designed to help councillors understand what permanency is, the factors that can have an impact and the questions that will help to understand what’s working well and what could be improved.

We want all our children to have bright futures. Key to that is ensuring that they have the emotional resilience and tools to make good choices, overcome challenges and move confidently towards where they want to be in adulthood. The current system cannot deliver that – so how can we ensure that it does?

Results from a survey of local authorities that explored recent changes by central government to both funding and policy in the early years sector. The survey focused in the cap on central spend, maintained nursery schools, early years entitlements, provision for disadvantaged children and early years practitioners.

Councils only want the best for the children and young people in their communities, but many children struggle to cope with the challenges they experience. Facing continuous family
violence and without recourse to adequate help when they need it, we know that some young people go on to be involved in the youth justice system.

Every child deserves a good school place, but that isn’t currently available to everyone. Government rules ban councils and council-maintained schools from helping academies and free schools improve. But given their excellent track record in maintaining high educational standards and in turning around failing schools, councils need to be recognised as effective education
improvement partners, ready and able to support schools of all types.